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evatronic ,

I always wondered how Starfleet envisioned the Defiant being used against the Borg.

Even the most basic Cube was demonstrably able to shrug off most attacks by the ship. Did they expect to build like a swarm of these ships, and send 20 - 30 of these bad boys in at once?

SulaymanF ,

It was a strange quirk of engineering; they tried to make a ship with too many weapons and a power system that was much bigger than needed, and a cloaking device. I don’t think they really considered tactical options and just told engineers to go nuts.

poundsignbuttstuff ,

The cloaking device wasn’t originally part of the design - they borrowed it from the Romulans for use in the Gamma Quadrant exclusively.

The idea of a supremely over-powered and over-weaponed “little ship” does make sense as it can fly circles around the cube and let loose on it but it really only makes sense to me if they planned on making multiples and just bombarding the Borg ships. They were even designed for a skeleton crew so this tracks if they’re considering loss of life. The small crew that runs a Defiant class versus the full crew compliment of a Galaxy, for instance, is a massive difference.

I believe it’s even mentioned that they scrapped building more Defiants as the prototype was bursting apart at the seems which is why they let Sisko take it. Only O’Brien was able to figure out how to stabilize it and thus more were built after.

HobbitFoot ,

Yeah. It was basically to use the Defiant as a very large fighter to dump tons of firepower while having enough shields and armor to survive more than one hit.

The designers gave the crew the best chance to live, but you weren’t going to have a good chance.

BeardedSingleMalt ,

They outright said in DS9 that it was supposed to be a fleet or swarm. The idea was that a large number of Defiant Class ships would attack. With how fast and maneuverable they are they wouldn't be large sitting ducks like Nebula, Galaxay or Excelsior classes.

Getting6409 ,

That’s a great question, never really considered it before. I seem to recall the front structure was able to be packed with warheads and launched at whatever, presumable with some targeting. Maybe the idea was 5 or 6 ships doing this on a cube could put it out of commission. Reminds me of torpedo boats.

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